Includes:The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), MPAA Rating: R
A Prayer for the Dying (1987), MPAA Rating: R
The Desperate Hours (1990), MPAA Rating: R
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991), MPAA Rating: R
The Pope of Greenwich Village
Set on the streets of New York's Little Italy, this dramatic series of character studies chronicles the lives and relationships between a disparate pair of Italian American cousins. Both of them want to leave the poverty of ghetto life, but each takes a dramatically different route when one of them joins the mob and the other accidentally impregnates his girlfriend. When the young gangster gets into deep trouble, the other must reevaluate his goals and his true feelings about his family. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A Prayer for the Dying
A man struggling to escape the political unrest of Northern Ireland finds that his violent past still follows him in this drama. Martin Fallon (Mickey Rourke) is a terrorist with the Irish Republican Army who, while attempting to blow up a British military transport, accidentally bombs a bus full of schoolchildren. The incident haunts Fallon, who decides to quit the IRA and escape to London. Fallon wants to relocate to America, but he lacks a passport, and his criminal past would prevent him from getting one. Jack Meehan (Alan Bates), a British gangster who knows about Fallon's past, offers him a deal -- he can get Fallon the papers and the cash to go to America, but in return he must kill a man. A priest, Father De Costa (Bob Hoskins), witnesses Fallon committing the murder, and Fallon wants to find a way to keep De Costa quiet without putting more blood on his hands. The original director of A Prayer for the Dying, Franc Roddam, left the production midway through shooting due to disputes with the producers, and star Mickey Rourke later attempted to disassociate himself from the film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
The Desperate Hours
The Desperate Hours directed by Michael Cimino, is an attempt to remake the Humphrey Bogart classic of the same name with indifferent results. Bosworth (Mickey Rourke), a brutal criminal on the run with his partners, takes over a house occupied by an unhappily married couple Nora (Mimi Rogers) and Tim (Anthony Hopkins) and their young son and daughter. Bosworth has escaped from jail with the help of his defense attorney Nancy Breyers (Kelly Lynch). The film focuses on the interactions of the family and Bosworth as he plans his escape to Mexico. Cimino wastes little time in developing the characters or explaining the implausible premise that Bosworth would chose an occupied house and hold an innocent family captive when the logical choice would be to lay low and wait for his chance to escape. Both Hopkins and Rourke, usually excellent actors, give wildly over-the-top performances, aided by the lurid, over-written dialogue of the screenplay and the badly paced, ill-conceived direction by Cimino, which instead of creating tension and suspense, simply confuses the already muddled and incomprehensible plot. The Desperate Hours is a pale example of the original with little to recommend it. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson star in this buddy-buddy futuristic action movie. Rourke is Harley Davidson, a biker with the Halloween-costume garb of a leather jacket, short haircut, earring, and a scar. Johnson joins Rourke in the trick-or-treating as Marlboro, an ex-rodeo rider wearing a cowboy hat, vest, and dilapidated boots. They hang out at a neighborhood bar. When they find that a collection of greedy bankers want to increase the bar's payments so it will be forced to close, the two decide to help the bar out of its financial straits by robbing the bank of $2.5 million in order to pay the inflated tab and keep the bar in business. Unfortunately for the boys, the bank deals in an illicit drug called "the dream," and when they rob the armored car, they